


Elevator Action

by karanguni



Category: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-08
Updated: 2008-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karanguni/pseuds/karanguni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Intra-departmental (and intra-personal) relationships are more than just <i>complicated</i>. In between War and conspiracy, family and duty, Shinra gets by.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elevator Action

_Wednesday, 0837_   


'My apologies,' Tseng said, slipping into his seat five minutes (seven, by his watch) late, face blank and fingers neatly stripping off gloves that might have been dry with gun discharge or wet with blood. They disappeared into the inside of his blazer too quickly for anyone to see; everyone present feigned disaffection.

Rufus Shinra leaned back in his chair and tapped a pen to his lip, and watched the man from Administrative Research with hooded eyes. Tseng returned his gaze evenly.

It was easy, for the likes of the men who were present, to smell blood in the water. The board chairman cleared his throat. 'Shall we begin,' he asked dryly, voice drawing the attention of ten sub-departmental heads back to him, and Rufus Shinra looked away with a smile.

 **  
_Wednesday, 1102_   
**

'Uncharacteristic of you, today,' Lazard said mildly, tapping the remainder of his notes out onto his data pad before shutting it with a snap. He looked up at Tseng, the rest of the conference room now empty. 'Bad business?'

Shrugging, the Turk walked to the coffee machine at the end of the room. 'Just business,' Tseng said, which spoke volumes on its own. 'I didn't expect to be delayed.'

Lazard chuckled at that. 'What am I saying,' the Director laughed. 'It's Administrative Research business. Not a bad tactic, keeping the gloves on until after you came in. You might've scared one or two departments into hiding their misconduct a little better.'

'It wasn't my intention to disrupt the meeting.' Tseng came back with two cups, passing one over. Lazard accepted it with a nod, and drank it black. 'If the assistant directors present chose to interpret that as a threat, it's their own paranoia at fault.'

'A Turk strolls into a room and you expect everyone else _not_ to jump?' Lazard snorted.

'Some are just better at disguising it,' Tseng said. 'How about you?' he eyed Lazard over the brim of his cup. The man was a friend, but sometimes all that _friend_ meant in this place was _accomplice_.

'Ask me no questions,' Lazard smiled enigmatically, 'and I'll tell you no lies.'

But the man was, at the end of the day, a friend; so Tseng didn't push the matter, even though he knew that one day he would have to ask, and Lazard would, undoubtedly, lie.

 **  
_Thursday, 0432_   
**

Dawn hadn't even begun to touch the horizon.

'Morning, boss,' Reno said, his voice almost quiet over the whirr of helicopter blades and the rush of rising air. Tseng climbed into the passenger seat, and sighed. 'Wutai for you again, what a lucky man.'

'Just fly, Reno,' Tseng said, deleting three messages from his PHS.

 **  
_Thursday, 1102_   
**

'Director,' Rufus said pleasantly, looking up from his late meal. The lounge on the fiftieth level of Shinra HQ had floor to ceiling windows and an illusion of space; an hour away from midnight and it was still filled with the murmur of late-night executives brooding over reports and blueprints and plans. Watering hole of the rich, a slum kid might've said.

'Rufus,' Lazard nodded, coming over with his own refreshments and sitting down. His tone was brief, but you didn't turn down an indirect order from a man whose surname was _Shinra_.

'SOLDIER business keeping you up late?' Rufus inquired politely, folding the broadsheet he was reading and making space.

'The War keeps all of us up late, I think,' the Director said, sitting. He nodded at the room in general. 'It's a nightmare for everyone from Engineering to Logistics, as I'm sure you know.'

Aged 17 and rising up the ranks with epic speed, Rufus Shinra probably knew a lot more than most; probably knew a lot more than any typical director who'd spent years struggling up the kill-or-be-killed corporate ladder. Lazard smiled at Rufus, with teeth.

Rufus smiled back with the smugness of inheritance. 'I don't see Veld around,' the -- _child_ was the best descriptor Lazard could think up for him, though in terms of cynicism and cruelty Rufus might well be going on a hundred -- young executive commented. 'Nor anyone else from his department.'

'War rarely goes smoothly,' Lazard shrugged. 'Veld's department specialises in making it seem the opposite. No small wonder they're rarely around these days.' Seniority was Lazard's only trump card, and he enjoyed the short look of annoyance on Rufus' face at the mention of a state of events he hadn't been around to witness. The President's prodigious heir hadn't been around when the War first broke out; he had grown up in chaos, never seen peace.

'Pity,' Rufus came back at Lazard, crossing his arms and adopting the arrogance of all boys his age. 'I enjoy their company.'

'Turks aren't delicate _company_ , Rufus.'

Rufus sipped at his drink. 'Only if they're your enemies.'

 **  
_Friday, 1456_   
**

'You guys have medical coverage up at your Headquarters, right?'

The clinic was a small one; battered up and tucked in a corner of Sector 1, it'd seen more than its fair share of bruises, broken bones and ugly, dirty wounds from street fights and industrial accidents and every other one of Midgar's thousand opportunities to get hurt. Turks were common patients, though for the life of him the in-house doctor didn't know why they didn't just get treatment for free up in their huge new tower with its state-of-the-art facilities.

'It's inconvenient,' Tseng said, barely wincing as the gouge down his arm was disinfected and then subject to the odd process of materia-induced regeneration. _Inconvenient to be turned into an experiment._ No department liked the Turks, the Science department least of all.

 **  
_Saturday, 0810_   
**

The real pursuit probably started on this day. Tseng let it slide; once was coincidence, and perhaps he'd become too suspicious, over the years.

 **  
_Saturday, 1722_   
**

Lazard walked in through the elevator doors. 'Tseng,' he greeted the other man. He paused. 'You're wearing the look on your face. What's wrong?'

'Nothing to do with internal issues in particular,' Tseng said. Then he part of him that was only human added, 'Urban Development needs to install more elevators for non-directorial staff.'

'Claustrophobic?' Lazard said, bemused. He knew that many staff members were less than happy with the existence of only two public lifts. 'I thought your type were afraid of nothing.'

'I dislike forced social interaction in a limited space,' Tseng said simply, and walked out as the doors pinged _ground level_.

'Would dinner tonight outside of this forsaken building considered be forced interaction?' Lazard called out after him. 'Or is that tie of yours too stiff to be loosened?'

 **  
_Sunday, 0810_   
**

Once was coincidence, but twice, by Tseng's standards, was outright conspiracy. 'Sir,' he said to Rufus as the other man walked into the elevator with him.

'You work on Sundays, Tseng?' the young Shinra asked, for all appearances just curious.

If Tseng believed in appearances alone, he would've failed in his job. 'Turks don't follow a set schedule,' he said. 'Unlike,' he added, 'most executives.'

'I find the quiet of the weekend conducive,' Rufus pointed out.

'I'm sure, sir,' Tseng said, and got out at the next floor to walk the rest of the way (23 floors) up to his office.

 **  
_Monday, 0703_   
**

'Contacted HQ,' Rude grunted, snapping shut his PHS and wiping grime off his gloves. 'Veld wants us in by 1700.'

Reno growled, retracting his mag-rod and wiping the blood off. 'I'm beginning to lose track of how many times we've flown over the damned continent now.'

'Sixth lot of defectors,' Rude shrugged.

To the side, Tseng zipped up body bags; a familiar task. 'Load them up,' he said, nodding to the other two.

'Even he sounds tired,' Reno said to Rude, grabbing one end of the black bag as his partner grabbed the other. 'We might as well be a damn coroner service.'

'What else were you expecting in this job?' Tseng interrupted them, pulling a second body over on his own. 'Get back to work.'

They weighted the bags, and dropped them into the sea before they hit the main continent.

 **  
_Monday, 0943_   
**

Shinra announcement:

 _SOLDIER 3rd Class, Victor Rodros: Killed in Action  
SOLDIER 3rd Class, Kain Grasse: Killed in Action  
SOLDIER 3rd Class, ......_

 **  
_Monday, 1720_   
**

'Reno, Rude, sector patrols for sectors seven, eight and one. Dismissed.'

Tseng waited for his orders as Veld flipped through the files on his table. 'You're on bodyguard detail,' the Director of the Turks said. 'Rufus Shinra.'

'Sir,' Tseng said; there was a lot of force in the single word.

'Special request from Rufus himself. He's after something,' the Director said. 'Find out what. The President thinks Rufus is a threat, and that is probably not far from the truth.'

'Rufus Shinra is seventeen,' Tseng pointed out. He was not going to play hide-and-seek with a hormone-charged adolescent used to getting his own way with whatever - and whoever - he wanted.

'When you were seventeen, you'd killed your first man,' Veld stated. 'And you're not half as talented as he is.'

 **  
_Monday, 2000_   
**

'A drink?'

It would've been pointless to say that he was on duty, or that Rufus himself was barely old enough to drink. Tseng settled with an impassive silence.

What Rufus Shinra needed protection from in Shinra's headquarters, Tseng didn't try to contemplate. Prodigy Rufus was, yes; subtle, not quite; attractive, perhaps; repulsive, absolutely.

'I hear you've been in Shinra for quite some time,' Shinra said.

'A number of years.'

'Necessary, one would think, for your department?'

'Not entirely.'

'You're quite the conversationalist,' Rufus commented, eyes bright.

'Perhaps I simply don't take well to having my strings pulled,' Tseng replied, which was his first mistake.

'Am I pulling your strings?' Rufus kept smiling.

'What would you like me to guard you from in your own rooms in the middle of Shinra headquarters, sir?' Tseng said, flatly. 'Monsters under your bed?' Yes, Veld was probably right: Rufus was after something. Tseng, however, had no desire to be pursued.

'I think mingling with the men I have around me on a daily basis has cured me of fear of monsters,' Rufus said, and it was the coyness in his voice that Tseng detested.

 **  
_Monday, 0234_   
**

Tseng arrived at the Sector 7 slums twenty minutes after the call; the stale air and darkness welcomed him like an old friend.

'What's the problem?' he asked Reno, flexing his fingers and pulling on his gloves as easily as he slid into the call of duty.

'A couple of informants, your average Wutai-type. He's not talking, she's quaking in fear, probably all an act. Don't speak a word that either Rude or I can understand. All yours, boss.'

Tseng pulled open the door to the shack that the suspects had been dumped into; it smelt of stagnant rain water and piss. One flickering tungsten light bulb cast just enough light for the shadows to seem deep. ' _You know something_ ,' Tseng broke into Wutainese without bothering with preamble. ' _Tell us, and this can and will end easily._ '

' _We don't know anything,_ ' the man - skinny, as if he hadn't eaten in days, but there were muscles there, as if he'd been trained for years - shouted. The woman cowered in her arms, but Tseng was beyond the point of caring for the softness of feminine curves. He pulled her away, shoving the man back with a kick to the stomach when he snarled and tried to hold on.

' _Talk,_ ' Tseng said, voice still even. The woman didn't tremble in his arms; as obvious a sign as any of an trained operative.

' _You're crazy,_ ' the man was yelling, now, ' _all of Shinra is crazy!_ '

'Reno,' Tseng said, 'lend me your rod.'

The air was thick for a split second, and then the woman was screaming as Tseng smashed the fingers of her left hand into bloody shards. He powered on the rod's charge, and stood waiting. ' _I have all the time in the world,_ ' he said.

The man went quiet.

Tseng crashed the rod down onto the woman's right hand, and the howl she gave as electricity surged only cut short when he stepped onto the remains of her fingers and grounded down with sole of his shoe.

The man talked after watching her bleed quietly onto the floor for twenty minutes, the pool of her blood creeping closer and closer towards him. Tseng nodded after he was done, then shot him in the head. It was an easier end than the one he'd given the woman.

Tseng returned Reno his equipment, and stripped down to his shirt. His blazer was in no serviceable condition.

'Fuck,' Reno said, quietly. 'Sometimes I forget that you're second to the Director for good reason.'

Tseng made a disinterested noise, and rolled up his sleeves after wiping blood off his cheek.

 **  
_Wednesday, 0830_   
**

'Rufus,' Lazard pointed out. 'Your seat is on the other side of the room.'

'Have some flexibility, Director' Rufus drawled, and remained in his new position directly opposite Tseng.

 **  
_Friday, 2100_   
**

'I believe,' Veld said slowly, 'I asked you to further investigate Rufus Shinra's agenda.' He put Tseng's report down onto the table and looked up. 'Not like you to dismiss orders so easily. Explain.'

'From what I can see, sir,' Tseng said, deadpan, point of vision fixed just beyond Veld, 'Rufus Shinra's only intention in keeping us - or myself - close to hand is to provide himself with entertainment.'

'Entertainment?' Veld raised an eyebrow.

'Propositioning me seems to be the only activity he engages in during my sessions with him,' Tseng said bluntly. 'I don't know if you'd like me to investigate that particular avenue any further, sir.'

Veld laughed, which snapped Tseng's gaze back to his mentor's face. 'And he hasn't succeeded? Rufus Shinra has still some ways to go, then. Do what you have to, Tseng.'

One more thing, then, to add to the list of unpleasant job duties.

 **  
_Tuesday, 0124_   
**

' _Fuck_.' The word hissed into the air, reverent and victorious like blond against black.

 **  
_Wednesday, 1110_   
**

'Something's happened,' Lazard said as he accepted his regular post-meeting coffee from Tseng. 'Between Rufus and yourself.'

Tseng shrugged; the job jaded him from day to day, it shouldn't surprise Lazard by any means. 'He has an inordinate interest in my department.'

'Is it that generic?' Lazard said, eyes narrowed. 'He's a child, Tseng.'

'I'm more than well aware of that,' Tseng replied, tense.

Lazard put his coffee onto the table, and took off his spectacles. He looked strangely vulnerable without them on. 'Must I lose to him in everything?' the Director asked the air.

'Lazard,' Tseng said, but that was all he would say.

 **  
_Friday, 0153_   
**

Rufus was lazy and untrained after sex, defences bared and walls down low. He wasn't used to playing tricks with his skin still buzzing with slow-spiralling tension, the low light coming through the windows from the eternal Midgar nightlife illuminating blue eyes with honest, wide pupils. Rufus was a true product of Shinra: as perfect and false and dead-set on ambition as any the company could breed, and it'd bred many in its history. Nothing about the sheen of corporate power appealed to Tseng: Rufus Shinra, like every other Shinra before him, was too golden and too unblemished to be real enough, too detached from Midgar to be rough enough.

'You'd be a brilliant replacement for Veld,' he murmured into Tseng's shoulder, 'when the time comes.'

'That's far away yet,' Tseng replied, bored.

Rufus' smile was a lazy curve of the lip against still-warm skin. 'Not as far as you think.'

 **  
_Friday, 0601_   
**

'Veld, sir,' Tseng said into the receiver of his PHS.

 **  
_Friday, 0900_   
**

Official Personnel Announcement

 _Effective today, Rufus Shinra has been appointed to Vice President and Corporate Officer._

 _Additionally, Rufus Shinra has departed on a long-term business trip, the details of which cannot be disclosed for security reasons._

 **  
_Friday, 0921_   
**

Tseng was not there at the helipad when they took him to Junon, even though Rufus waited, and waited, and waited.

 **  
_Friday, 1903_   
**

They met in the elevators, Tseng on his way down, Lazard on his way up.

'Rufus is gone, then,' the director of SOLDIER said to his friend. 'Sad to see him go?'

Tseng was actually smiling. 'Emotion isn't meant to play a part in my job.' Lazard's look in response was so openly sceptical that Tseng had to laugh. 'No, Lazard. I'm not.'

'Are you lying again, Turk?' Lazard asked.

'Is your real name Deusericus?' was Tseng's reply.  



End file.
